


The Angel of Alexandria

by ImprobableDreams900



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avenging!Crowley, BAMF!Crowley - Freeform, Bad Things Happen to Aziraphale, Footnotes, Gen, Mild Language, Protective!Crowley, Revenge, Wings, historical fiction - Freeform, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5901265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley has never had good experiences with Aziraphale and burning buildings filled with books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Royal Library of Alexandria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So this is a fic I started writing a while ago and then got distracted from and never finished. I've reworked the beginning scenes as best I can, though the writing just in general is definitely better in the second (newer) half.
> 
> I must also note that I am not a historical expert, and everything I know I learned from the internet. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Aziraphale loved books. He loved them like birds loved the sky, like cats loved to sleep, and like Hobbits loved food. His love was not limited to any one genre—he tore through history, fiction, poetry, and philosophy texts alike. He prided himself on having read all of the major works of literature for all the centuries he had been stationed on Earth, and was not about to stop now.

The time was 48 BC (though no one would refer to it in such a manner until well after the C in BC came about), the place was northern Egypt, and Aziraphale had found the love of his life. The Royal Library of Alexandria was the most beautiful thing the angel had ever seen, bar none.*

 

*Okay, so maybe Eden was prettier. Certainly bits of Heaven were to die for—hardy har har—but when you grew up in a place, its beauty was rendered common by simple overexposure. For Aziraphale, having spent most of the last four millennia among various mud, straw, and stone structures, the sprawling library seemed not only an architectural wonder but the singular oasis of human knowledge in an otherwise crude and ignorant world.

 

Sitting atop a slight hill, the library rose majestically in front of the angel, all tall sandy walls and painted hieroglyphics. Within its walls, there was a bit of the Greek about it, in the tall ionic pillars that ringed the inner library. Short trees and carefully trimmed shrubs lined the paths crisscrossing the courtyards between buildings.

Inside, the shelves were comprised of orderly diamond-shaped cubicles, each one holding a delicate papyrus scroll. Between the sheer number of scrolls and the library’s adjacency to the Alexandrian harbor, it was impossible for a visitor to escape the oddly complimentary smells of wood shavings and sea salt. Thick layers of dust had not yet found the time to drape themselves over each scroll, so the light streaming through the wide windows illuminated the motes twirling lazily in the air. 

Aziraphale spent hours, days, even weeks in the library, poring over the scrolls. It was the largest collection of human knowledge anywhere in the world, holding over 300,000 scrolls collected from hundreds of locations around the known world.** The Alexandrians had such a thirst for knowledge that any foreign boat laying anchor in their port was required by law to surrender any books or scrolls for immediate copying by the scribes of the city.

 

**It was a matter of much contention between Above and Below as to if they should tell the humans living in Europe, Asia, and Africa about the existence of two more continents across the ocean, or vice versa. An order came down from pretty high up that they should leave the humans in the dark, though it was a matter often discussed privately among angels and demons, and the subject of many jokes, like “more clueless than a European looking west” and “there’s a better chance of them tripping over the Aztec empire than what you’re suggesting.”

 

Alexandria was currently under the control of Julius Caesar, a particularly busy human with a particularly poor idea of what a good haircut looked like, and who had lately taken refuge in the city to defend himself from his enemies. It was rumored a force under the Egyptian commander Achillas was headed towards Alexandria, and Caesar hadn’t the troops in Alexandria to properly defend himself.

None of this bothered Aziraphale in the slightest, as the angel had long ago realized that human conflict was unavoidable regardless of where he went, and largely irrelevant to his personal schedule. And for now, the books were in Alexandria, so that was where he would be too.

The demon Crowley was marginally more concerned about this, as he’d heard that a certain group of demons was accompanying the Egyptian force, and he didn’t want to get messed up with them.*** They were rumored to be an unfriendly group, and exceptionally violent, even for demons. They also had a track record of killing angels, so Crowley wanted him and Aziraphale to be long gone by the time they arrived with the Egyptian army to sack the city.

 

***This was also at least partially due to the fact that the last time Crowley had gotten caught up with a group of unpleasant rabble-rousers, it had resulted in his permanent expulsion froma certain very exclusive garden. It is also interesting to note that, since overexposure had not occurred, Crowley found said exclusive garden to be very beautiful indeed.

 

He and Aziraphale had been taking a little vacation these last few weeks, mostly because they had both gotten a little bored of their regular duties and thought some time off was in order. The Arrangement was still fairly new, the ink still drying, as it were, but Crowley had faith nothing too untoward would happen. Aziraphale had picked the place—based entirely upon the books, of course—and Crowley had tagged along because he liked the sound of a vacation on the hot Egyptian coast. This was not the only reason Crowley had tagged along, but it was the only one the demon admitted to himself.

When the Egyptian army was a hard day’s march away, Caesar sent messengers to meet it, offering a compromise. The messengers were promptly beheaded, but news came back to Alexandria that the force was 20,000 men strong and that there was a contingent of at least 2,000 cavalry. Caesar had nowhere near that number in Alexandria, and already many civilians were fleeing the city. 

Crowley wanted to be among them, but Aziraphale was being especially stubborn. The angel insisted he’d almost finished reading the entire philosophy section, and just wanted a little more time. After some nagging and the gift of a cream cake* Crowley managed to get him to concede that they had probably better leave before the Egyptians showed up, and agreed to make good their escape later that evening.

 

*carefully held out of the angel’s reach until he agreed to Crowley’s terms

 

Crowley, therefore, decided to take a little stroll around the city wall to burn some time. He paused on the eastern edge of the city, looking out over the desert to where the Egyptian army supposedly lurked.

He basked in the sun for a few minutes, quite pleased with the tan he’d acquired over the past weeks. He drummed his fingers on the edge of the wall, squinting at the hazy horizon. The ground fell away into low hills after several hundred yards, so he couldn’t get a glimpse of the army supposedly hiding just out of sight.

He shrugged to himself and turned away. If the Egyptians wanted to bring war on the Romans, then what did he care? The more the merrier, as far as he was concerned. Maybe he could claim he was involved, and get Below to give him a commendation, or at least some more slack.

The demon was strolling casually along the wall, heading for the ladder down, when he heard a commotion in the street below. 

Crowley glanced down uninterestedly and saw two men arguing over what appeared to be some sort of basket. They were tugging it between them, shouting angrily. A third man stood a little ways away, wrapped in a tan robe of the style the Egyptians currently found in fashion. Crowley was about to turn away, the petty dispute beneath his interest, when the man in the tan robe waved his hand. It was a complicated gesture, and one Crowley recognized immediately. Simultaneously, one of the men dropped his half of the basket and punched the other man square across the jaw. The man who had thrown the punch followed his attack by tackling the other man to the ground. Soon they were rolling around in the sand, grunting and trying to knock the wind out of each other.

Crowley ignored them, fixating instead on the man in the tan robe, who carefully dusted a bit of sand off his sleeve in satisfaction, resting his free hand on the hilt of an elegantly curved Greek _kopis_ sword. He turned his head away, and Crowley saw a swirling tattoo on the side of his neck— the mark of a demon owing allegiance to Jamur, one of the Dukes of Hell— and, incidentally, the mark of a demon supposedly sitting with the Egyptian army a hard day’s ride across the desert.

Crowley quickened his pace across the top of the wall and slid down the ladder so fast his palms burned, his sandals swirling up a cloud of sand as he hit the ground.The other demon was walking away from him, and from his lack of complete and utter fear, Crowley figured he must not have noticed him yet.

Crowley crossed the space between them in a dozen quick strides, skirting the two men still locked together on the ground, kicking sand in all directions. 

When he was only a foot behind, Crowley grabbed the other demon by the shoulder and spun him around, shoving him roughly against a nearby wall. 

“Hey—!” protested the demon as Crowley rammed him against the stone and mud surface. He took a moment to focus as his hands jumped automatically to where Crowley had a strong grip on the collar of his robe. 

The demon blinked once, then twice, but instead of registering surprise, his expression was…pleased?“Oh…it’s you.” The demon's tone was oddly level as he twisted the corner of his mouth up into a smirk.

Crowley narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What do you mean, ‘it’s me?’”

“Oh, nothing.” The demon twitched his mouth up in a gesture of confusion, and cast his eyes down in a manner that could not have been more unconvincing if he tried.

Irritated, Crowley pulled him forward a few inches and shoved him back against the wall, hard, eliciting a yelp of pain from the lesser demon.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s me?’” he growled.

The demon squirmed in Crowley’s clutches. “Nothin’, nothin’, I swear!”

“The hell you swear,” Crowley shot back, dropping his voice a register. Holding the demon against the wall with one hand, he easily pulled his captive’s fancy Greek sword from his belt and raised it to his throat.

“How long have you been here?” Crowley hissed.

The demon looked down at the blade by just moving his eyes, and Crowley reluctantly pulled it back a few centimeters so he could talk.

“Just a few days, _honest_ ,” he said, in a tone of voice that not even Aziraphale would mistake for sincerity.

“Yeah, honesty from a demon,” Crowley growled. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?”

Crowley pulled the demon back and slammed him against the wall again. He moved the blade of the _kopis_ closer. “Don’t get smart with me, got it?” 

The demon made a face. 

“Why are you here?”

“The usual, okay?” the demon protested, voice pitching up into a whine. “Tempting, buying souls, you know? Well, you _would_ if you bothered to do your part. We were following the Egyptian army, and figured we’d go ahead to prepare the way.” He gave Crowley a wide, innocent look.

Crowley hissed at him in frustration. The demon smirked.

“We done now, Mr. Crawly?”

Crowley narrowed his eyes and fought the urge to grind the irritating lesser demon into the wall. “It’ssss _Crowley_ , and how do you know me?”

A sudden look of guilt came over the demon’s face, and he looked quickly at the ground, schooling his features into a neutral expression, but it was too late.

Crowley tilted his head. “You weren’t supposed to let on that you know who I am, were you?”

The demon was silent.

Crowley shook him again, harder this time. _“Were you?”_

The demon shook his head.

“Why? What do you want with me?”

At that moment someone trotted around the corner. “Hey Mitho—” The newcomer broke off, took one look at Crowley, dropped the ceramic pot he was carrying, and ran back in the direction he’d come from. 

Crowley pulled the _kopis_ from his captive’s neck, stabbed him in the leg with it, and ran after the new arrival.

The demon’s scream followed Crowley as he sprinted around the corner. This second demon was faster than Crowley, though, and hadn’t spent the last month lying around getting a tan. He was already halfway down the road, so Crowley reluctantly let him go and dropped back into a trot. As he turned around to head back to the first demon to continue his questioning, he felt a crunch under his foot as he stepped on the shards of broken pottery from the pot the demon had been carrying.

Crowley looked down at them uninterestedly, and then blinked as he noticed a strange gleam to the shards. He frowned and squatted down beside them, running a finger over the inside of one of the shards. It came away slick and covered in something smooth and transparent. Crowley raised his finger to his nose and sniffed. He froze. He stared down at the pot, a tremor of fear running through him.

A moment later that fear hardened and turned to anger, and he leapt to his feet and ran back to where he’d left the first demon.

He was lying on the ground, hands clamped around his leg where Crowley had stabbed him. The _kopis_ lay next to him in the sand, and he made a frantic grab for it when he looked up and saw Crowley coming.

Crowley covered the five feet to the demon and stomped hard on his hand just as his fingers found purchase on the sword hilt. The demon shrieked and retracted his hand, dropping the sword.

Crowley wasted no time on the weapon, kicking it aside thoughtlessly as he reached down and dragged the demon to his feet. He threw him back up against the wall, the demon shrieking in pain as his leg twitched spasmodically.

“What did you do?” Crowley demanded, leaning forward to provide enough force to keep his prey flattened against the wall. “Where did that demon come from? _Where was he?_ ”

The demon grimaced in pain and Crowley reached down with one hand to squeeze his leg near the wound, eliciting a pathetic whine.

“ _Where was he?_ ” Crowley pressed harder on the wound as he allowed the veil of magic covering his serpentine eyes to drop, reminding the scrawny creature before him that he was dealing with the instigator of original sin.

“The library, the library!” the demon shrieked as his leg jerked sharply to the side. 

Crowley took a deep breath, dropped the demon, and took several paces back, a hand going to the side of his head to tangle in his hair. The demon slid down the wall into a sitting position. 

“It’s too late now, anyway,” the demon barked between gasps.He grinned maliciously at Crowley,showing a mouthful of stained, crooked teeth. “It’ll all be aflame by now.” He nodded his head past Crowley at something above him, and the older demon turned to see a black tower of smoke rising above the buildings. “You’re friends with that… _angel_ , aren’t you? The bookish one.” The demon spat. “Filth.”

Crowley turned on heel and ran as fast as he could down the road.

“It’s no use!” the demon shouted after him, cackling. “Nothing like holy oil to keep an angel nice and toasty!”

 

 

//~~~***—***~~~\\\

 

 

Aziraphale was reading. It was quite an interesting scroll, detailing the travels of an intrepid explorer through western Asia and Mesopotamia. 

He had memorized the name of the scroll and the author, in the hopes to continue reading it at a later date; Crowley was quite insistent they leave tonight, before the Egyptian army arrived.

Aziraphale was no fool. He knew the demons accompanying the army were the ones spoken of in harsh tones by his brothers; they had killed at least five angels already. He had no intention of getting horribly killed by demons, but honestly didn’t think they’d waste their time on him. He was a pretty small fish in a pretty big ocean.

The intrepid explorer in the scroll had just begun recounting his journey across a mountain range when Aziraphale smelled it.

It was sharp and waxy and very out of place among the warm smells of the library. The angel sat up, glancing around. Two humans were nearby, one poking through the shelves, the other reading a scroll at a nearby table. They didn’t appear to have noticed the smell.

The room he was in was a small rectangle divided into quarters by two perpendicular intersecting aisles. At the end of one of the aisles was the door to the main hall, and on the wall opposite it was a small window, hardly more than a hole in the wall but placed very high up. Two large tables with three-legged stools sat nearby, and in the very center of the room, inlaid into the gleaming marble floor, was a circular seal depicting the three Muses, to whom the entire library was dedicated. In each quadrant of the room stood two freestanding bookcases with criss-crossing diamond-shaped shelves filled with scrolls. Further bookshelves were built into the walls, and a couple of them had elaborate rolling ladders.

When the smell persisted, Aziraphale stood, carefully rolling the scroll back up. There was a sudden series of shouts from outside that drifted through the window, and Aziraphale thought he might have seen a wisp of something dark outside.

The humans looked up in alarm as Aziraphale started for the door, aiming to leave the room long enough to see what all the fuss was about. The two humans followed.

Aziraphale opened the door and was met with a thick wall of oily black smoke. Bright flames engulfed the far side of the door and licked hungrily around the edges. The angel quickly shut the door.

“There’s a fire!” said the younger human in a frightened tone, as though it wasn’t obvious.

“That door’s the only way out,” said the older human, in a tightly controlled, calm tone. “How are we going to— careful!”

Aziraphale looked around to see the fire already burning through the door, flicking around the doorframe. He hastily took several steps away.

“The window?” the angel suggested, gesturing towards the other end of the room.

They started back in that direction.

“It’s no use,” the younger human protested. “It’s too high.”

The flames licked up the walls on the other end of the room, searching for burnable material. A dark smoke was beginning to cluster around the ceiling. Aziraphale didn’t understand how it had burned through the door so quickly.

“How about one of those tables?” The older human pointed out, gesturing behind him. His hand moved to his short salt and pepper beard in thought. “Standing on that, we might be able to reach.”

The three of them hurried over, picked up the heavy table, and awkwardly walked it over to the wall, trying to ignore the fire, which had spread to the end of the nearest bookcase.

The younger human immediately jumped onto the table as soon as it was in place, but the window was still several feet out of reach of his outstretched hands.

“It won’t work!” he wailed, hands scrabbling uselessly against the stone. “We’re not going to make it!”

“Calm down, boy,” the older human snapped. “If I’m going to die, I’m certainly not going to die surrounded by panicking fools.”

The boy’s mouth snapped shut.

“I can give you a leg up,” Aziraphale offered.

“That would be much appreciated, sir,” said the older human, pulling the boy off the table and allowing Aziraphale room to climb up. “Glad to see at least one of us is keeping his head.” He gave a pointed glance at the younger human, who gave him a dirty glare and turned to watch the fire progress steadily along the bookshelves toward them.

Aziraphale wove his fingers together and the older human used it as a step. Aziraphale boosted him up, and he grabbed the edge of the windowsill.

After a moment he gestured to be let back down.

“It’s no good,” said the human, climbing down off the table. “It’s just a straight drop to the ground, nothing to get any handholds on. Leave it to the Greeks to build a library like a fortress.”

“Hey!” protested the younger human indignantly. “I’m Greek!”

“Are you really going to make a point of this now?”

The boy frowned and looked away.

“Now, is there some rope around here somewhere?” continued the older man, casting his gaze around. “Anything we can use to lower ourselves down?”

He sprinted over to look around the nearest bookshelf, and Aziraphale was considering miracle-ing some into existence when the younger boy suddenly brightened.

“No, no! I’ve got it!” He walked over to the nearest bookshelf, which had a rolling ladder. “We don’t need rope when we’ve got ladders!”

The older human joined him, a thoughtful look on his face. “You know, kid, that’s not a bad idea.” He gave him a surprisingly kind look. “For a Greek.”

Aziraphale watched this exchange with pleasant surprise. Then he shook himself and went to help them lift the ladder off its track on top of the bookcase. He could muse on the complexities of the human soul at length later.

They successfully freed the ladder and carried it clumsily to the table. Aziraphale helped them pull it up onto the table and again offered his hand. The older human stepped onto it and grabbed the end of the ladder, which the younger human tipped over to him from his spot on the floor. Aziraphale hoisted him up, and he carefully slid the ladder up and out the window.

“Careful, old man!” the younger human called as the ladder slowly disappeared from view. 

“I’ve got it wedged up against a pillar,” said the older human a moment later, looking over his shoulder. “One of those that holds up the roof.”

“See? Greek architecture.”

“Yeah, well…” the man shrugged and gave a small smile.

“Not to be any bother,” Aziraphale grunted, “but you’re rather heavy and the fire isn’t stopping for a chat.”

“Sorry,” said the older human, pulling himself up onto the window sill. “I’ll go down and hold the ladder, make it more stable.”

He disappeared through the window.

Aziraphale pushed the younger human up after the elder, though he paused on the sill and looked back down at the angel. “What about you, sir? Who’s going to push you up, then?”

“I’ll get a stool, don’t worry,” Aziraphale said easily, waving away his concern. “I’ll be there in just a moment.”

The boy started down the ladder as Aziraphale climbed off the table and walked briskly to the closest stool. The fire had consumed almost the entire length of the bookcases nearest the door, and the smoke was beginning to thicken.

Aziraphale coughed as he snatched up one of the stools and hurried back to the window.

He was still coughing as he threw the stool up onto the table and climbed on top of it, feeling the unstable legs wobble beneath him. The smoke felt vicious and almost sharp in his lungs, and wasn't clearing from his system as quickly as it should have.

Aziraphale pulled himself up onto the windowsill.

The two humans were outside, the older one holding the ladder steady. Behind them, the fire was jumping from tree to tree, and smoke was hanging gray and hazy, obscuring much of the sky.

“Now just swing yourself around and climb down,” the older human called up, giving a small cough.

Aziraphale was about to comply when he glanced one last time over his shoulder. The room was half ablaze, and his gaze fell on the bookshelves, burning like firewood. He watched the yellowed papyrus of the scrolls curl and darken, the knowledge of centuries turning to charcoal, and made a decision he would probably regret.

“You go on ahead.”

“What? Climb down; it’s not far.”

Aziraphale glanced back inside, and knew deep down that there was no way he would ever be willing to sit by and let books burn.

“I’m going to try and save some of the scrolls,” he called down, already starting to step back down onto the stool.

“No, no! Come down here—there isn’t time! This whole place’s going to go up any second now!” He gestured helplessly behind him at the fire sweeping closer, and a particularly thick patch of smoke swept by, as though to emphasize his point.

“Leave without me,” Aziraphale insisted. He was an angel, after all. He had no fear of fire. Contrary to his words, as the angel inhaled, his breath caught in his throat. He coughed, but couldn’t seem to clear his airway. He motioned at them to go as he miracled the smoke out of his lungs. It didn’t help much.

“You—” To Aziraphale’s horror, the older human starting climbing back up the ladder, presumably to pull him down by force if necessary.

“No, no!” Aziraphale said hastily, pulling himself back onto the windowsill and reaching out to push on the ladder. It was held securely, both by the pillar and the younger human. He glared at the ladder until it suddenly cracked. The older human was only a couple feet off the ground and landed unharmed, though he still stared up at him. 

Aziraphale wanted to save the books, yes, but it was his duty to protect the humans first, and he wasn’t going to let them go back into danger when they could be heading for safety.

“Run, run!” he said hastily, waving them off. He coughed and waved a hand uselessly in front of his face to clear the smoke.

The younger human shifted uncertainly and coughed into his sleeve, glancing over his shoulder at their slowly narrowing exit between the curtains of flame.

“But now how will you get down?” demanded the older human.

“Nevermind that; there’re more ladders in here,” Aziraphale said quickly, wishing they would just leave.

“But it took three of us to get this one out here!” pointed out the younger human.

“We’re not leaving without you,” insisted the older one stubbornly.

Aziraphale made a very unangelic noise that was partway between a sigh and an exasperated groan. He carefully reached out and touched the minds of the two humans. He put the thought into their heads that he had gone on ahead, and was waiting for them outside the library.

Aziraphale dropped down out of sight, and a moment later peeked back up to see the two humans running off across the stone path. Most of the landscaping was ablaze as the fire continued to spread quickly from tree to tree and bush to bush. There seemed to be several areas not yet alight, though, so Aziraphale decided he still had some time.

The angel climbed down off the stool and the table. The fire had spread to the remaining table and was using it as a bridge to cover the gap to the second row of bookcases.

Aziraphale walked quickly to the closest shelf and started pulling scrolls off randomly, stacking them in his arms like the firewood he refused to let them become. He carried them back to the window, climbed up on the stool, and tossed them unceremoniously out the window. 

The angel made several more hasty trips, studiously ignoring the flames crawling closer along the bookshelves. The air was growing steadily hazier, and Aziraphale found himself coughing constantly, unable to determine why the acrid smoke stung so very much. It was just fire, after all.

Aziraphale grabbed what he decided would be his last armload of scrolls and pulled himself back up onto the table. He had just stepped onto the stool when there was an ominous creak and the stool cracked underneath him. He fell hard to the tabletop as one of the legs of the stool shot across the room and skidded across the marble floor with a sharp _thwap!_

Aziraphale sat, stunned, on the table for a few moments, processing. The window was now too high to reach, but the fire had consumed the other stools. Even the last remaining ladder was aflame. Only the last couple feet of bookshelves remained untouched, and the smoke was beginning to choke him. He coughed it away and pulled himself off the table, leaving the scrolls behind him. His knee stung as he limped forward, but he miracled the pain away with a wave. He tried doing the same with the smoke filling his lungs, but there was disturbingly little effect.

There was nothing else for it, Aziraphale decided grimly; he’d have to fly out.

Aziraphale reached into the pocket of extra-dimensional space where his wings hovered just out of human sight and pulled them into the material plane. He stretched them the best he could in the cramped space and moved as far away from the window as he dared. He stopped onto the marble seal in the middle of the room, eyed the swirling flames only a few feet away, choked out a cough, and prepared to take a running leap at the window.

He sprinted forward, keeping his wings tight to avoid grazing the flaming bookshelves while trying to still get some lift. 

He managed to get a foot or so off the floor when he realized he was never going to make it. He quickly pulled his wings behind him and braced for impact with the edge of the table.

Limping a little for the second time, he returned to the marble seal of the three Muses.

He needed a longer running start if he had any chance of getting up to the window’s height. That meant he needed to back up as far as he could, right up next to the blackened still-flaming remains of the door. 

The smoke was thicker there, and the bookcases lining the door burned like pillars of fire, the tops of the flames licking the ceiling. Aziraphale took a deep breath and walked forward.

Tiny, flaming fragments of papyrus spun past him as he walked between the blazing bookcases, their heat oppressive. The smoke was heavy in his chest, and it actually _hurt._ He choked out a cough, feeling himself grow dizzy as he edged as close to the door as he dared. He turned, keeping his wings well clear of the flames, and peered forward to where the window was only visible as a small hazy square through the smoke.

He coughed again, trying unsuccessfully to find a clear bit of air. 

Shaking his head in the hopes of clearing it, Aziraphale took a step forward, and that was when he heard the crack.

It was small, just a quiet little snap, but soon followed by a huge splintering noise like a tree toppling. Aziraphale half glanced to the side and saw the bookcase on his left beginning to lean towards him as the fire finally burned through the bottom supports, causing the structure to collapse under its own weight.

Aziraphale sprang forward, holding up his arms and wings to shield himself from the sudden rain of flaming scrolls as they slid off their listing shelves. 

He was almost to the end of the row—could see the three Muses seal clearly on the floor in front of him—when the whole lower support finally collapsed and the bookcase fell sideways.

The edge of the very last shelf struck the side of Aziraphale’s head, driving him flat onto the ground and slamming his head hard against the gleaming marble floor.

One wing twitched, and then the angel exhaled and grew very still.

The flames licked closer.


	2. The Great Harbor of Alexandria

By the time Crowley reached the library, the flames were twenty feet high.*

 

* It would later be remarked that there are certain circles in Hell for those who commit certain crimes. This is entirely true. There is one for people who burn libraries and bookstores, and Crowley runs it.

 

The demon stood in shock, feeling the heat washing over him from yards away.

The library was adjacent to the harbor, and there Julius Caesar’s ships were also ablaze. A few spectators stood between the harbor and the library, watching both the ships and the books burn. No one made any move to put out the fire. No buildings were clustered too close to the library, which was mostly smooth tan stone, and they seemed to think the best avenue was letting it burn itself out before summoning the bucket brigade.

Crowley stood at the edge of the harbor for about five seconds before plunging towards the library.

As a demon there was little difference to him between holy fire and regular fire; it was holy water his kind had to look out for. Something about hellfire hurting angels and the waters of baptism hurting demons. Crowley did have some limited control over fire, but he wasn’t sure if holy fire would resist his magic, and was anticipating getting a little singed. Bodies were replaceable, though. If the fire got to Aziraphale, it would burn his very essence, and the angel wouldn’t be able to sit around petitioning for another body in Heaven like if he’d been stabbed. Holy fire was the end of the line for an angel.

Crowley plunged into the flames, ignoring the screams from the bystanders behind him. 

The heat was oppressive, but no worse than that in the deepest corners of Hell. He waved the flames away from him, and some listened. Others sizzled his sandals and scorched his skin rebelliously.

He emerged, coughing and skin crawling, from the initial wall of flame and peered around, eyes watering.

“Aziraphale?” he shouted, moving forward through the haze. He distantly recalled the layout of the library and started forward in what he thought was the right direction. When his feet hit scorched ground, he knew he was in the courtyard. The smoke was thinner here, as the fire had already passed through and burned what it could find. He had last seen Aziraphale in the back, in one of the rooms on philosophy.

He sprinted across the scorched earth and plunged back into the thick smoke. He coughed and gagged on the oily fumes and when his foot impacted with the first step of a short staircase he staggered and fell forward. His palms seared from the heat of the stone as his hands flew out to catch his fall, but he blocked out the pain and staggered back to his feet.

His robe was scorched and the bottoms of his sandals sizzled when he set them to the ground. He drew some strength together and cleared the smoke from the immediate area. He coughed his way to fresher air and peered at his surroundings.

“Aziraphale?” he shouted again, his voice scratchy and raw. He thought he saw the dim shape of the philosophy-history complex in front of him and sprinted towards it. The whole building was covered in sheets of flame, and Crowley saw the remains of a shattered urn scattered on the grass nearby. More holy oil. The whole place was an angel deathtrap.

Crowley took a deep breath and ran through the burning doorway of the complex. The walls were stone and shouldn’t have burned, but the fire was persistent. He tried to push the flames away with his mind, but they resisted him. He staggered and tripped on something, barely managing to keep his balance. He kicked open the first door he found and stumbled inside. The bookcases were smoldering, flecks of papyrus burning and spiraling through the air.

“Aziraphale?” He staggered into the room and ran down its length but saw no sign of the angel. His stomach was starting to knot itself together, and the smoke was settling heavily in his lungs.

The second door he tried fell open like it was made of chalk, revealing only a massive heap of smoking wood where all the bookcases had collapsed together.

“Aziraphale?” His voice went up an octave and broke into a cough. “Dammit, angel, where are you?” He started forward, meaning to pick through the wreckage, but the heat was so immense that he broke into a coughing fit and retreated instead. There were only two doors left.

He kicked the next one open and staggered forward, choking on a sudden plume of smoke and embers. His lungs felt bleached dry. 

The flames here had eaten the bookshelves and were licking at the walls. The center bookcases had collapsed, but the ones near the edges were intact. He inched his way around the smoking pile walked forward, coughing into his elbow and waving his hand around in a vain attempt to ward the flames off. He felt himself getting lightheaded and stooped to try to find fresher air near the floor.

The bookcases against the far wall were still standing, though the fire wreathed furiously around them, eating through the dry wood with uncanny speed. The collapsed bookcases near the door were little more than a mound of fire and wood, half hidden by the veil of smoke permeating the entire room.

Crowley was about to turn away when he saw a glint of white, out of place in the blacks and flickering oranges.

He started forward, dodging under a spurt of flame arching out from a nearby bookcase. He was ten feet away when he recognized the shape lying prone on the library floor.

“Aziraphale!” 

The angel lay crushed under the weight of several bookcases, head turned to the side and cheek pressed flat to the floor. His wings were manifested and spread above him, similarly crushed, but their whiteness was what Crowley had spotted through the smoke. 

Fire was racing along the tops of the bookcases, dripping embers like sap, burning lower and lower.

Crowley ran forward and gestured angrily at the flames. They ignored his gesture and, if anything, started eating faster through the wood, searching for the prize at the bottom.

The fire may be impervious to his magic, Crowley thought grimly, but the bookcases weren’t. He stepped forward and gripped the edge of the bookcase directly above Aziraphale, ignoring the searing heat on his fingers. With an extra surge of demonic strength, he lifted the bookcase a few inches and then grabbed it with his mind, shifting its broken pieces back the five or so feet necessary to clear Aziraphale’s sandals.

Crowley mentally dropped the bookcase, gasping as he felt it drain him. It fell in a shower of sparks, splintering into rapidly blackening pieces. The demon dropped to his knees and grabbed at Aziraphale’s collar, pulling him forward a few inches. He put a hand on either side of the angel’s face, and was relieved to find that he was still warm, and not just from the fire’s proximity. He was still alive.

Crowley’s relief was cut short when he pulled his hands away and noticed that the last three inches of his fingers were covered in blood.

 

 

//~~~***—***~~~\\\

 

 

Crowley pulled Aziraphale up into the best sitting position he could manage and grimaced when he saw the large red streak on the angel’s temple, matching a second smear on the marble floor.

An angry burst of popping sparks drew Crowley’s attention, and he hastily dragged the angel a few feet further from the flaming bookcases. The fire dripped down to where Aziraphale had lain mere moments before, and streamed along the floor. It paused at the small pool of blood on the marble. A single tendril reached out to touch it, tentatively. Crowley watched in horror as the fire surged forward, greedily lapping up the blood and searing it to a bright, almost blue-tinged white. Temporarily sated, the fire paused and flickered higher, as though looking around for the rest of its prey.

Aziraphale’s wings, already turning gray from the ash, trailed behind him on the floor, and Crowley quickly reached over to yank them out of reach of the inquisitive flame. 

But why had the angel even manifested his wings?, Crowley puzzled. Surely—

Crowley’s eyes fell on the table pushed up against the far wall, beneath the window, and then returned to rest on Aziraphale. 

He’d been trying to escape.

As his eyes swept over the angel’s ashy wings, his attention was caught by a glint of embers glimmering on the angel’s feathers. Half of Aziraphale’s left wing was smoldering, Crowley suddenly noticed, feeling a tremor run through him as he realized it wasn’t just ash turning the angel’s feathers gray. Aziraphale’s wings had taken the brunt of the damage from the fire, Crowley realized, protecting his body from the embers spiraling down from the bookcases. 

Pulling Aziraphale’s wing closer, the demon hastily pressed down on the embers with his hands, feeling them sizzle away under his palms. He’d swatted away half of them when there was an ominous groaning noise from behind him.

His head spun around just in time to see the remaining bookcase by the door collapse in on itself. As it twisted and fell, a large segment hit the ground directly in front of the door with a sound like a cracking egg. The doorframe exploded in flames and a fresh wave of smoke rolled in.

Fighting back a fresh bout of coughing, Crowley glanced around the room hastily, looking for another escape route.

The only option seemed to be the tiny window in the opposite wall, about eight feet up and just big enough for a man to squat on comfortably. It was very clearly Aziraphale’s exit of choice.

Crowley, however, knew a better way out.

Laying Aziraphale carefully back on the marble floor, the demon dashed across to the table under the window and started pulling it towards him. Several scrolls piled on it bounced off as he dragged it halfway across the room and tipped it on its side, turning it so the top was facing the window. He grabbed Aziraphale under the arms and started dragging him behind the table. The angel was heavy—heavier than he’d expected, and his wings were just dead weight. Mentally cursing Aziraphale’s love of sweets as he coughed up a lungful of smoke, Crowley succeeded in dragging the angel behind the upturned table. He deposited the angel carefully behind the thick layer of wood, making sure to pull his wings fully behind the wooden shield. The fire was inching closer, hemming them in on all sides. Luckily there was nothing burnable between the bookcases and their spot directly on top of the marble seal, and even this fire needed fuel.

Crowley poked his head up above the edge of the overturned table, took as deep a breath as he could manage with the smoke filling the room, and made a complicated gesture at the far wall, adding a few ancient words to enhance the spell. He promptly dropped down behind the table as the wall exploded.

The table shook as blocks of stone rammed into it and flew overhead, crashing into the opposite wall. One of the remaining bookcases creaked ominously and began to list dangerously.

Crowley waited until the thuds had abated and peered back over the table’s edge. The wall where the window had been was gone, blasted apart, leaving a huge ragged gap. Bits of scorched papyrus soared through the air and the flames leapt higher with the fresh supply of oxygen.

Crowley coughed, trying to clean his lungs. He turned to Aziraphale and shook his shoulder.

“Hey, Aziraphale. Angel, talk to me.”

Aziraphale’s head weaved back and forth but he showed no signs of reviving.

Crowley glanced again at the redness welling from his head, but could do nothing about it. If he were conscious, Aziraphale could heal himself, but there was little a demon could do to heal an angel.

A spurt of flame jumped suddenly between the table legs, leaping onto the trailing edge of one of Aziraphale’s wings.

Crowley jumped and swatted angrily at the flame, pulling the angel’s wing closer. To his horror, the flame, sensing its prey, eluded his efforts to suffocate it, instead quickly spreading across the angel’s feathers. Crowley cursed and used his whole arm to smother the flame, wishing he had a piece of cloth.

He glanced up to see the fire coalescing in a peaked pillar several feet away, flames stretching towards him hungrily. Crowley gave it a long look, grabbed Aziraphale, dragged him around the edge of the table, and fell backwards as quickly as he could.

The fire struck out like a cobra and devoured the table just as Crowley hastily stumbled backwards, dragging Aziraphale with him. He got the best grip on the angel he could, careful not to crush his wings, and staggered over the broken remains of the wall, tripping as the stone blocks shifted under his weight. A block shot out from under his foot and he landed flat on his back, Aziraphale slipping from his clutches.

Crowley lay there on the rocks for a moment, the wind knocked out of him. 

He rolled over, vision spinning, and his hand brushed something soft and dry in the piles of rock. He struggled to focus, and squinted in confusion at what looked like one of the scrolls from the library, crushed beneath the rubble. This would not have been so odd, except that it was _underneath_ , which meant that it had been outside before Crowley destroyed the wall. His mind tracked back to the table pushed up to the window, and the half dozen scrolls he had knocked off it. And he pieced it together. 

The idiot had been trying to save the books.

Crowley mentally groaned as he forced himself to his feet, casting his shaky eyes around for the crazy angel. Aziraphale was lying a few feet from him, holy fire dancing on his wings. Crowley grabbed him and hauled him unceremoniously over the last remaining feet of rubble, onto a short stretch of something that had once been grass. Crazy or not, the angel was coming with Crowley.

They were between the complex and the outer wall of the library now, the ground beneath them little more than charred earth and smoking tufts. All around them the fire roared, closing in.A flickering tendril crept close to Aziraphale’s foot, prompting Crowley to redouble his grip and haul him further away, but he knew there wasn’t much point. They were trapped.

Crowley coughed, pulling Aziraphale closer as he looked up at the tiny patch of blue sky visible above them.

He dropped his head to look back down at the angel, limp as he sagged against Crowley, scorched and ashen wings trailing behind him on the ground. 

The demon’s eyes tracked along the glimmers of fire trapped between the feathers, and suddenly understood what he had to do.

Swallowing, Crowley pulled the angel up and closer to him, so he was in more of a standing position. He then looped his arms around Aziraphale in a tight embrace, feeling Aziraphale’s head droop onto his shoulder. Crowley watched the fire creep closer over Aziraphale’s shoulder, confident it had them now, and Crowley knew there was only one thing for it. He tightened his hold on Aziraphale and slid his own wings into the material plane. 

Twenty feet across, gleaming, and impeccably groomed, they shamed the bedraggled, scorched wings of the actual angel. Usually this was something Crowley would have been incredibly proud of, and eager to point out, but right now he was just happy they were still in working order. He beat them three times, hard, the downdraft pushing the flames low to the ground before they leapt up again. 

The fire caught onto what he was doing, and suddenly surged forward. In the same instant, Crowley pushed off the ground with as much force as he could muster, bringing his wings down as hard as he could and manipulating the air to move to his desires. 

His feet left the ground just as the fire reached them.

He was three feet off the ground in seconds, but Aziraphale’s long wings drooped down after them, still brushing the ground. The fire raced up them in an instant, unwilling to let its prize go. 

Crowley strained to get their combined weight high enough to clear the edge of the outer wall, wings already aching with the strain of the added payload. He didn’t bother casting a spell to keep them shielded from the humans, instead conjuring a cross breeze to carry them up and over the wall. The fresh air blasted into Crowley, and he found himself gasping it in, trying to expel the smoke from his lungs while still keeping them aloft.

Soon the blazing library was behind them, but as he turned his head, dizzy with the sudden influx of oxygen, he saw Aziraphale’s wings trailing out behind them, leaving streaks of orange and black in their wake. Crowley watched as there was a sudden surge of flame on the angel’s wings, and at the same moment Aziraphale jerked unexpectedly in his arms.

The movement surprised Crowley enough that he accidentally loosened his grip, and the angel slipped several inches before he could redouble it. The flames on Aziraphale’s wings crawled higher.

Crowley changed tack, arching his wings and letting the wind pull them towards the front of the library. His grip on Aziraphale slipped further, his hands closing on only singed fabric.

The demon put all his effort into a concentrated spurt of wind in the direction of the harbor, feeling them drop in altitude as his wings abruptly gave out. 

He flapped feebly, but couldn’t regain control. They were falling too far, too fast, spiraling erratically as Crowley struggled to find purchase with his wings. The harbor flashed before him, then the library, then the harbor again, spinning like a top. He tried to brace his wings to create some lift, but they kept falling. They were just too heavy.

A sudden blast of wind hit them, snapping Crowley’s wings open like a sail. As he was yanked backwards, his grip on Aziraphale slipped again, and he just barely managed to grab onto the angel’s forearms as they fell apart. His hands slid further and locked around the angel’s wrists like a vice. Crowley’s wings screamed as the sudden shift in the center of mass wrenched at his shoulders, but the demon refused to let go, instead trailing the angel after him like a banner. The library receded rapidly before them, and a moment later Crowley was hit by a sudden wave of saltwater air.

The wind abruptly gave out and Crowley felt them descending rapidly. When he was about eye level with the humans gawking at them from the edge of the harbor, he glanced down and let go.

Aziraphale dropped the half dozen feet into the harbor with a splash, and Crowley pulled his wings together like a diver and followed suit.

He hit the water like a stone, muscles quivering with the impact as the warm water rushed past him. He waited a long minute until his movement was arrested, then started swimming up towards the surface. His wings beat uselessly in the water, bogging him down. He tucked them back into their extra-dimensional plane and, greatly lightened, bobbed easily to the surface.

He spluttered, coughing up sea water as well as ash. He took several gasping breaths, clumsily treading water as he waited for his vision to clear. Caesar’s ships floated on the other side of the harbor, each a tower of flames, sending red and yellow reflections dazzling onto the water. 

Ignoring them, he splashed around in an awkward circle, looking for Aziraphale. There was no sign of him, and Crowley realized too late his mistake.

He’d hoped dropping into the harbor would extinguish the holy fire, but had forgotten that the angel was unconscious, and injured besides, and therefore unlikely to survive a surprise swim.

Crowley splashed desperately over to where he thought the angel had fallen, judging by a small oil slick and a couple white feathers drifting on the surface, took a deep breath, and dived.

The water flickered yellow and purple as he descended, pushing as deep as he could. Beneath him, the water was black and featureless. There was no sign of the angel. 

Panicking, Crowley came up for air, spluttering. He swam a little further away and dived again, scouring the darkness for any sign. His chest was burning when he glimpsed a flash of white underneath him. He dove deeper. Again, it had been the angel’s ivory wings that attracted his attention. 

He kicked deeper, past the angel’s wings, looking for the angel himself. Once Aziraphale’s pale form was in view, he grabbed him around the middle and kicked up. 

They went nowhere. 

Between Aziraphale’s dead weight and his sluggish wings trapped in the water, it was like dragging several sacks of potatoes through molasses. 

Crowley’s lungs were burning again, and his heartbeat was hammering loudly in his ears, but there was no way he was going to leave the angel here now, not after everything he’d just been through.

He kicked with all his might, putting his last ounce of demonic strength into the gesture. 

He started to gain some headway, and that was all it took. Crowley’s lungs were screaming now as he began to see the glimmer of reflected light on the surface.

They were going to make it.

Crowley’s vision blurred and darkened around the edges, but he kept kicking. He pushed Aziraphale in front of him.

Two feet below the surface, his vision went black.


	3. Just a Regular Inn at Alexandria

Luckily for Crowley, a combination of inertia and buoyancy saved him. All of a sudden he was coughing and spluttering on the surface and gasping for air, desperately treading water.

Aziraphale floated next to him, painfully still and riding low in the water, threatening to sink again.

“Angel?” Crowley spluttered, heaving him farther above the surface. He felt Aziraphale’s cheek again, and though it was still warm, there was an unnerving stillness about him. The demon leaned closer and put his head close to the angel’s. He wasn’t breathing.*

 

* Strictly speaking, neither Crowley nor Aziraphale needed to breathe, but their human bodies did. If they wanted to avoid discorporation, such tedious human chores were necessary. In Aziraphale’s case, it was likely he might not have survived discorporation so soon after a run-in with holy fire, something Crowley knew all too well.

 

“Damn!” Crowley hissed, grabbing Aziraphale. He started kicking frantically towards the nearest shore. The angel had probably swallowed a fair bit of water, but he couldn’t get him to cough it up while he was vertical.

Crowley tugged Aziraphale along viciously, heedless of injury to either of them. The nearest bank was mercifully close and also devoid of spectators. Caesar’s ships burned on the other side of the harbor, and that was evidently more interesting than two half-drowned figures splashing around in the water, even if they had both been winged when they hit the surface.

Crowley’s feet slapped against the hard rocks edging the harbor as he dragged Aziraphale up onto the shore. He dropped him unceremoniously onto a relatively flat area of sand and dropped down next to him, gasping. Every inch of his body was trembling with overexertion, but the demon forced his eyes up to Aziraphale. The angel had turned a frightening shade of blue, and when Crowley raised a dripping hand to his cheek, it was growing cold.

“Dammit, Aziraphale,” Crowley growled, pushing the angel over onto his side. Water streamed off his wings in long rivulets that revealed the disheveled feathers. Certain areas were blackened, whole feathers missing. Crowley reached over and hit the angel square on his back, trying to get him to cough up the water. On the third hit he convulsed and Crowley heard him coughing. 

The demon flopped onto his back, more relieved than he felt he strictly should have been. He took a couple deep breaths before he sat up, coughing. 

His hands stung and he glanced down absently to see that his palms were blackened and cracking, searing with the sea salt. He finally registered the pain and hissed sharply, sucking his breath in. His lungs felt like they’d been dragged over rocks and then nettles, but at least he was alive. He doubted Below would have let him back up for a while after finding out he’d died trying to save an angel from some other demons. Reflected poorly on the company and all that.

He grabbed Aziraphale’s shoulder and rolled the angel back over. He was shivering a little, and didn’t respond to the demon’s prods, but had regained at least some of his regular complexion, which was reassuring. Crowley groaned and hauled himself to his feet, then did the same for Aziraphale, throwing an arm around the angel’s shoulders. 

Crowley was shaking all over, and Aziraphale was just as heavy as he’d always been, his weight heavy against the demon’s shoulder.

He felt something wet tickle the arm opposite Aziraphale and stopped to glance over. It was the tip of one of the angel’s battered wings, twitching around him as though in a hug. He glanced back at the angel, but his head drooped even lower and the wing fell away.

Grateful Aziraphale didn’t seem to be completely out of it, Crowley staggered into the city with an arm around the unconscious angel, his white wings furrowing two lines into the sand after them.

Crowley’s demon magic was all but spent, and he had just barely enough to conjure an illusion around them to turn the humans’ eyes away. He made a beeline for the inn they’d been staying at and let himself in through the back way. The stairs proved an enormous difficulty, and he resorted to dragging the angel backwards up them. He let himself into Aziraphale’s room and dropped the angel onto the bed with a grunt of relief. His own room was just across the hall, but suddenly that seemed an awfully long way to go. There was an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair in the corner, but Crowley propped himself up in it anyway, putting his feet up on the corner of the bed.

He let out a deep sigh and lay still, just relishing the fact that they were both still alive. Every bone ached, and his wings, tucked away in their extra-dimensional pocket, throbbed in painful rhythm with his heartbeat, but none of that seemed terribly important. He watched Aziraphale’s chest slowly rising and falling, and felt a strange sense of calm overcome him. Usually this would have worried the demon immensely, but he couldn’t muster the strength necessary to deny the feeling, and let it wash over him instead. He tried to keep his eyes open—to stand watch in case something happened—but his eyelids grew heavier and heaver and his eyes eventually slid shut and he drifted off to sleep.

 

 

//~~~***—***~~~\\\

 

 

Aziraphale slept fitfully, gasping almost to consciousness before falling back under, like he was walking on quicksand. His dreams were nightmares, alternatively featuring him burning alive or drowning in darkness. In some of the dreams he was utterly alone, and in others he heard a familiar voice shouting out to him. All of the dreams ended in darkness.

He felt himself drifting into consciousness again and groaned with the pain of it. His wings burned and his head throbbed and he felt like he’d been dragged over hot coals. He cracked his eyes open and saw a crude ceiling several feet above him. His breath caught in his parched throat and he coughed, trying to push himself up into a sitting position. He immediately regretted it; his wings shrieked in protest and a grey haze crept into his field of vision. He gritted his teeth and tilted his head back, leaning it against the wall. He waited until the pain subsided and opened his eyes again, taking a look around the room, which he recognized as his at the inn.

Crowley lay asleep in the chair in the corner, feet propped up on the corner of the bed. He looked simply awful. His robe, usually so carefully kept, was disheveled and looked like it had scorch marks on it. The demon’s hair was a mess, alternatively sticking up in all directions and plastered to his face. He was covered in sand, mostly around his arms and feet, and his sandals were nowhere to be seen. 

Aziraphale remembered the library and the fire and realized what must have happened. 

He looked again at the demon. Crowley looked absolutely exhausted but largely unhurt, and Aziraphale let himself slide back onto the bed with a sigh of relief.

The movement jerked his wings, apparently still manifested, and a wall of white-hot pain descended on him and he blacked out again.

 

 

//~~~***—***~~~\\\

 

 

Crowley came into consciousness with the willingness of a man being dragged to the gallows. He was sore all over, and there was a pulsing headache behind his left temple. He groaned and sat up, dropping his feet off the bed. He glanced at Aziraphale, still lying unconscious on the bed.

The demon stood shakily and stretched, groaning at the tightness in his muscles. He looked down at himself and shook his head. This was his nicest robe, one he’d procured in Rome only a few years ago. He liked to keep up with the times, and this was what all the Roman Senators were wearing. He wiped his hands on the material and instantly regretted it as a surge of pain seared along his hands; not only were his palms burned and split, but his robe was sticky with sand and sea salt.

He blessed, as quietly as he could, grimacing at the air as he flapped his hands around ineffectually. 

The angel stirred on the bed, and Crowley fell immediately silent, watching him.

Aziraphale shifted over a few inches, twitched the tip of one of his wings, and fell still.

After a moment, Crowley returned his gaze to his cracked palms. Some small measure of his demon magic had been restored to him during his nap, so he took the opportunity to heal the worst of the burns on his palms. Once he could flex his fingers properly, he let the flow of magic taper off. He could fix them more later. 

His gaze trailed back to Aziraphale, wings burned and damaged worse than Crowley’s hands could ever be. 

Crowley frowned and moved over to look at angel’s left wing, which appeared to have suffered the most damage. It drooped off the bed, the end crumpled against the wall of the tiny room. Not for the first time Crowley thought they should have found a better inn. Crowley could have very easily procured the funds necessary for them to spend their vacation relaxing like pharaohs on the beach, but Aziraphale had refused, probably on the grounds of the procurement of said money. Crowley had reluctantly conceded, though he had managed to extract a promise from the angel that for the next vacation he got to choose their lodgings. 

Now the angel was spread unconscious on the bed like a mummy instead of a pharaoh. 

Crowley set his jaw and returned his attention to the angel’s wing, unable to stop a hiss from deep in his throat when he saw the extent of the damage.

As proud owner of his own personal set of wings, Crowley appreciated their fragility. A single missing feather could interfere drastically with flight, particularly if it was a primary, and Aziraphale was missing all of his save three. His secondaries were in better condition— it appeared the holy fire hadn’t reached up that far— but the feathers were dotted with tiny black burn marks from the embers that’d dropped on him. His wings were more black than white now, streaked with ash and only partially cleaned by their dunk in the harbor. In addition, Crowley noticed several feathers that Aziraphale ought to have pulled out ages ago from his last molt— would the angel never learn? It was just unhygienic.

The demon’s flash of good humoredness vanished when he laid a careful hand on Aziraphale’s wing— unhealthily hot to the touch— and felt it twitch uncomfortably beneath his fingers and try to retract. Great gaps of missing feathers stood out starkly along the leading edge, and he could see the white gleam of bone in several places, accompanied by fresh blood from where the holy fire had eaten straight through the skin.

He wasn’t sure if the angel would ever fly again, even in a thousand years.

Looking at Aziraphale’s wings, half the feathers missing or burnt away, the rest scattered with blood or burn marks, Crowley felt something hot and acidic stir in the pit of his stomach. His gaze hardened.

He stood very abruptly, letting Aziraphale’s wing droop back to the ground. With a snap of his fingers all the sand on his body leapt off him and cascaded to the floor. His hand was on the door when he heard Aziraphale stir behind him.

“Don’t.” The word was a whisper, barely more than a scratch, a hoarse plea from a throat ravaged by salt and smoke from the holy fire.

Crowley turned slowly, letting his hand drop off the door. He came over to the bed and, after a moment’s pause, squatted on the floor next to it.

“How you doing, angel?” he asked, softer and less wryly than he had intended.

Aziraphale shrugged, or rather tried to. The motion jerked his wings, and he abruptly gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.

“You try to get some rest; I’ll take care of everything,” Crowley said in a tone that bordered uncomfortably close to reassuring.

Aziraphale made a face at him. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Crowley gave him his most innocent look. “Whatever do you mean?”

“That was holy fire, wasn’t it? I didn’t—” he paused to cough, and the terrible racking motion made Crowley’s eyes narrow, “—didn’t recognize it at first, but nothing…nothing burns quite like it.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed, forcing his voice calm.

“And now you’re off to take out whoever lit it.”

“What?” Crowley asked in his sincerest voice, arranging his features in an expression of surprise. 

Aziraphale gave him another look, exhausted and shadowed with pain but uncomprehendingly level.

“Now why would I do that?” Crowley asked innocently.

“Because you’re you,” Aziraphale said flatly. “A demon. And you’re afraid they’ll cause trouble again.”

“Nah,” said Crowley unconvincingly. “I’m just going to mess up some tax records, is all.”

Aziraphale gave him a look so devoid of his usual gullibility that Crowley actually felt mildly chastised for trying to deceive him. 

“Don’t do it,” Aziraphale told him. “Don’t kill them.”

Crowley looked up at him sharply and let his pretense drop. “Why not? They tried to kill you, and you said it yourself, they’ll try again, and will probably have something special planned for me too.” Crowley had a sudden stroke of inspiration. “And the library!” he pointed out quickly, adding a tragic note to his voice. “They _burned_ the _library_.”

Aziraphale looked at him unblinkingly, and his gaze was so clear it seemed to go straight through him. “Please don’t. There’s been enough destruction. Let them go.”

Crowley frowned at him, searching the angel’s eyes. He looked incredibly tired and old beyond his years, which was quite an accomplishment. Crowley twisted his mouth and nodded reluctantly. “Fine. Happy?”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Aziraphale nodded and sank back onto the mattress, suddenly acting as exhausted as he looked.

“You feeling well enough to work some angel magic?” Crowley asked, changing the subject. “I can work some bandages, but anything you’ve got is better.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes again, like he was thinking. “A little bit,” he said hoarsely. “Come here.”

“What? No, use it on yourself, angel. You need it.”

Aziraphale’s eyes roved up to meet Crowley’s, and the demon felt certain he was going to argue, but then all the strength seemed to melt out of him. “Okay,” he murmured, voice sounding suddenly very frail. 

The angel’s eyes drifted to the side and seemed to focus on nothing as a crease of exertion formed between his eyebrows. Then Aziraphale seemed to deflate before his eyes, head falling back onto the pillow as his eyebrows smoothed out. 

“You okay, angel?” Crowley asked quickly, leaning over him. “Don’t overdo it.”

“Remember…” Aziraphale struggled to meet his eyes even as his own slunk shut. “You…promised.”

“…Aziraphale? Angel?”

He looked to be out of it again, so Crowley stood up and walked back over to the door. 

He paused, looking back over his shoulder at the frail, exhausted angel that had almost gotten himself killed trying to save some scrolls.

“Yeah, angel. I promised. Too bad demons don’t keep promises.”


	4. The Palace of Alexandria

Crowley strode through the streets of Alexandria like the avenging angel he no longer had any chance of ever becoming. He could hear the rapidly receding footsteps of the frightened rabbi in the distance. At least that part of the plan had gone smoothly.

He carried no weapons except a small dagger tucked away in an inside pocket, but, then, he’d never needed much in the way of weapons anyway.

The streets were unusually quiet; most of the populace was huddling inside their mud and wood houses. The distant sounds of fighting and yelling reached the demon on the slight breeze; while he and Aziraphale had been unconscious, the Egyptian army had breached the city walls.

Julius Caesar had retreated to the Alexandrian palace with Cleopatra, where it seemed he planned to make his final stand. He was still hopelessly outnumbered.

None of this particularly interested Crowley, except that he knew that Jamur and his demonic followers would be honing in on the center of the action, and that was undoubtedly going to be wherever Caesar was huddling with his paltry force.

The palace at Alexandria was built on a spurt of land stringing out into islands that looped in a circle around the harbor. A stone causeway connected the mainland to the palace, and it was to that narrow isthmus that Crowley directed his feet.

The sounds of fighting were growing louder now. The demon rounded a corner and rocked to a halt. A dozen soldiers dressed in the red cloth and gleaming plate armor of the Romans were engaged in hand-to-hand combat with about two dozen Egyptians and a handful of Alexandrians in the trappings of the city guard. Crowley took a moment to observe them. He was still several blocks from the causeway to the palace. 

Caesar was a brilliant military general; that much Crowley knew, so why would he send his tiny force to fight the huge Egyptian army in the streets? The causeway was infinitely more defendable. Even as he watched, the clearly outnumbered Romans fell back, the Egyptians and Alexandrians stepping over red-cloaked corpses.

Crowley shrugged to himself and walked calmly towards the fighting. He ducked easily under a stray sword swing and stepped lithely between two Alexandrians. Their eyes slid off him like oil off water* as he continued in a straight line between two Romans, who helpfully swerved to the side to avoid him. Not a soul saw him pass.

 

*At some point in the future, Crowley would liken the effect to that of water sliding off a duck. This was obviously a far more accurate and scientific explanation.

 

The clanging of swords on swords continued behind him as the demon carried on, unruffled. He covered the two blocks left to the causeway without interruption. Great white stone pillars rose up on either side as he approached, engraved with large swirling lotus leaves that wrapped around their curved surfaces. The pillars were capped with square stone tops in the Doric style, and above these, supported by the elegant pillars, ran the long stone aqueduct to the palace.

Half a dozen Romans stood in the narrow causeway before Crowley, swords out and shoulder to shoulder.

The demon strode forward confidently. He kept his simple illusion draped over himself, and when he grew near, one of the soldiers in the center found the sudden urge to sneeze. As he stepped back briefly and turned to the side to relieve himself, Crowley slipped through the gap without breaking step.

He strode into the palace of Alexandria unopposed.

 

 

//~~~***—***~~~\\\

 

 

Crowley padded silently through the palace, walking straight past guards and servants alike. His reflection flickered eerily in the highly polished marble floor, inlaid with lotuses and intricate diamond patterns.

He followed the highest concentrations of guards and was soon pushing open the ornate doors to the best-protected room in the city. He smoothed down his black sea silk togaand stepped forward, letting the illusion around him fall away like a cast-off cloak. He dusted a bit of dirt off his shoulder.

Voices immediately ceased and a half dozen pairs of eyes fixated on him. 

Crowley strode forward calmly. “Caesar, I presume?” He addressed this to the man standing in shock in front of him, wearing an elaborate royal purple toga.

Caesar blinked and suddenly the room burst into action. The four guards Crowley had strolled past suddenly poured in after him, Caesar raised a hand to gesture to them, Cleopatra—resplendent in a long white _kalasiris_ and enough gold to buy a small nation—drew a long silver dagger, a servant hovering behind Caesar jumped a foot in surprise, and another servant walking by with a pitcher of water stuttered to a halt and went white. 

Two strong hands closed roughly around Crowley’s arms but the demon stood calmly, maintaining eye contact with Caesar.“That’s a bad idea.”

Caesar motioned for the guards to hold their position. “Who is this?” he demanded, voice rough and commanding. His gaze, dark and sharp, switched to Crowley, standing complacently between the red-cloaked guards. “Who are you?”

“A friend.”

Caesar regarded him for a moment. Cleopatra glanced at him, dagger still in hand.

“How did you get in here?”

Crowley couldn’t suppress a little huff of irritation. “Through the door, _obviously_.”

Caesar narrowed his eyes at him, and the guards’ grips on his arms tightened.

“Look,” Crowley said, a trifle testily, “you’re in danger. Do you want to know how or not?”

“I should think it was… _obvious_ ,” Cleopatra said coldly, mimicking Crowley’s turn of phrase. “The army at our gates is difficult to miss, I _imagine_.”

Crowley shifted his gaze to the pharaoh and raised an eyebrow. “I did notice, in fact. Though this threat is…” Crowley’s gaze slipped past Cleopatra to the servant behind her with the pitcher of water. Crowley’s eyes narrowed as he peered through a thin shimmer of illusion. “…different.”

Crowley blinked and abruptly returned his gaze to Caesar. “Let me demonstrate.”

Before the guards knew what was happening, Crowley had escaped their grip and was sprinting for Cleopatra. She raised her dagger, but Caesar quickly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her aside. Crowley barreled past them, headed for the terrified servant. The demon snatched the pitcher of water from her grip as she took a couple of hasty steps backwards. 

Crowley met her eye and grinned. She started to drop the illusion, preparing to fight, but Crowley was quicker. Careful not to spill any on himself, he tossed the entire contents of the pitcher on the demonic servant.

The moment the water hit her, she screamed. Crowley dropped the pitcher and leapt back as she writhed, oily brown smoke rolling off her in waves. Her skin seemed to tear, fizzling for a moment before she abruptly burst into flames. Her scream shattered and broke as she dropped to the ground and vaporized, leaving only a smear of a sort of black sludge splattered on the marble.

Crowley grimaced, dusted his hands together, and glanced over at Caesar. His expression was fixed, and horrified. Cleopatra couldn’t stop staring.

Behind them, several of the guards paled. 

“See?” Crowley said smoothly. “Your water supply has been poisoned.”

“ _That’s_ poison?” Cleopatra asked incredulously.

Crowley shrugged. “Close enough, for our purposes. I’m assuming that water was for something…?”

The other servant in the room piped up nervously, with eyes as round as saucers, “Yes; Lord Caesar’s bath was being drawn—”

Crowley gestured emphatically to the boy as he strode back towards Caesar and Cleopatra. None of the guards were trying to restrain him now. “There are spies in your palace, Lord Caesar. They have poisoned the water supply, and are working against you. She was one of them. There are surely others.”

“The…serving girl was a spy?” Caesar seemed to be having trouble getting his head around this.

“Yes. Or paid by one. They’ve certainly been paying off your men. Even your closest advisors may have turned against you.” 

Caesar’s eyes suddenly darkened. “Pothinus,” he said bitterly.

“Sorry?”

“Pothinus. Just this week I learned he and Achillas were plotting against me.”

“Precisely!” Crowley said quickly, latching onto this thread and running with it. “Plotters everywhere! We must—”

There was a flurry of movement to his side and Crowley quickly broke off, spinning to see that Cleopatra had pulled a guard aside.

“Hey, hey!” Crowley said hurriedly, moving forward. “What’s this?”

Cleopatra turned on him, and her eyes were flint. “If they have indeed poisoned our water, we need to dig new wells. I know where the water runs clean, beneath this very island. Unless you have a problem with that?” 

“No, no, carry on,” Crowley said hastily.

Cleopatra raised an eyebrow and gestured for the guard to go. She turned back to Caesar, ignoring Crowley. “What about Ptolemy?”

“I’ve let him go, as you asked.”

“Let him go?”

“Just now. Marius is overseeing it. The Egyptians can look after him.”

“Marius?” Cleopatra asked sharply. 

“Yes. He said I should let Ptolemy go, that he might divide the loyalties of the Egyptian army.”

“But Marius told me that you’d ordered him to kill Ptolemy and string him up as an example to the army!”

Caesar blinked. “What?”

“Where is he?” Crowley demanded, seeing the handiwork of his fellow demons before the humans could piece it together. “This Marius, where is he?”

Caesar turned to him. “The causeway—I told him—Ptolemy is to be set free—”

Crowley bolted for the door, and a moment later heard the thunder of booted feet following him. He retraced his earlier steps and burst out into the causeway. 

And there was Ptolemy, walking calmly across the stone isthmus, leopard-skin mantle and white Egyptian s _hendyt_ rippling in the breeze.

As Crowley watched, a dark streak shot across the sky towards the oblivious pharaoh. With a quick surge of demonic magic, Crowley knocked the streak away, casting it over the edge of the causeway and into the sea below. 

Crowley spun, glancing above him at where a dark shape was quickly pulling away from a small balcony up near where the aqueduct entered the building. Cleopatra, Caesar, and the guards were just reaching the causeway when Crowley sprinted past them in the opposite direction.

He heard Caesar issuing instructions behind him as he ran up the nearest flight of steps. He ran back along the ensuing corridor and collided with the shooter head-on. Crowley regained his balance first and tackled the other. He was tall and stocky and dressed like a Roman soldier, but the swirling tattoo on his neck betrayed him. This was another of Jamur’s group—in fact, Crowley realized, this was the one that had outstripped him earlier, and dropped the ceramic pot filled with holy oil. He had helped burn the library.

Crowley dug his fingernails into the demon’s shoulders, pinning him to the ground. “We meet again,” he hissed.

The demon glanced up at him, and all at once recognition jumped over his features. Suddenly he was struggling twice as hard, trying to knock Crowley off him any way he could. 

Crowley abruptly relaxed his death grip, rolling nimbly to the side. While the demon scrabbled to his feet, Crowley leapt to his, and wasted no time in clocking him one square across the jaw.

The demon staggered backwards as Crowley swiftly closed on him, pushing him back through the doorway onto the cramped balcony where he’d shot from. The crossbow that had done the deed was propped up nearby. 

The demon made a grab for it, but Crowley kicked his hand hard and grabbed at his legionaries’ armor, hauling him up onto the railing. The demon tried to twist in Crowley’s grip, but he refused to give an inch. 

“Hey, hey!” the demon protested quickly, grabbing at Crowley’s arms to steady himself as he leaned precariously over the railing. “It wasn’t anything personal, okay?”

Crowley glanced briefly over the demon’s shoulder. He still smelled faintly of oil. 

“I was just doing as I was told!” the demon said quickly. “That’s all!”

Crowley met the demon’s eye and held it for a heartbeat before responding:

“I know.” 

Crowley shoved him over the balcony.

The demon hit the aqueduct with a sharp splash. He screamed, and there was a sudden commotion from the causeway below.

Crowley turned and walked back into the palace.

Down at the causeway, Caesar and Cleopatra were arguing.

“—wanted a public execution,” Caesar was protesting. 

“That’s all well and good to claim that now, after he’s turned to smoke in our aqueduct!”

Caesar spotted Crowley and rounded on him. “I commanded that Marius be captured for a later execution, and you disobeyed me!”

“You’re welcome.”

Caesar opened his mouth, an angry glint in his eye, but just then a tall, sandy-haired soldier ran up to him.

“My Lord Caesar!” he declared.

Caesar narrowed his eyes at Crowley and turned to the newcomer. “Gregorius, what news?”

“We’ve been all but overtaken! We’ll try to hold the causeway, but we may perish!”

Caesar nodded curtly. “Make it so.”

The soldier nodded sharply, gave Crowley a strange look, turned, and ran off down the causeway.

“Whose idea was it anyway to fight in the streets?” Crowley asked. “The causeway is far more defendable.”

Caesar shot him a sharp glare as he swept past him. “Marius,” he said curtly. Under his breath he hissed, “ _Traitors_.” 

Soon they were back in the center of the palace, Cleopatra directing the guards to the best locations for defense of the palace.

“Has anyone else been acting strangely?” Crowley grilled Caesar. “Anyone suspicious or peculiar? Acting out of line?”

“You, for one,” Caesar growled. “Remind me again why I don’t just have you thrown to the mercy of the Egyptians?”

Crowley frowned. “Hey now, I’m just the one exposing the plot!” Caesar’s face remained harsh and impassive. “Then don’t listen to me!” Crowley said, exasperated. Clearly he wasn’t getting anything more from the stone-faced Roman. “Get yourself killed. See if I care.”

He was halfway to the door—he could check the palace over himself—when the door opened quickly and a scrawny, breathless soldier entered.

Caesar straightened in his chair immediately.

“Message from the harbor, my Lord Caesar!” the soldier barked, bowing. Cleopatra waved away the guards she was talking with, eyes on the new arrival.

“Speak!” Caesar commanded.

The soldier looked up hesitantly, but delivered his message with the confidence of rote memorization: “Roman fleet en route engaged with Alexandrian ships. Roman fleet pushed against the rocks by pressure from the Alexandrian ships. Roman fleet totally destroyed. No reinforcements will be possible.”

Caesar’s face grew, if possible, even harder. Cleopatra frowned. The soldier bowed again and quickly retreated. 

Caesar began pacing. Cleopatra followed him with her eyes. “No reinforcements means a long-term siege,” she stated calmly. “We won’t have fresh water for several days, and have no food other than the little stored here. If the Alexandrians have the harbor, we are surrounded. I need to talk to Ptolemy and Achillas.”

“No,” Caesar barked. “Not yet. Rome will send more troops. All we need to do is wait for them.”

“An early surrender guarantees us the best terms,” Cleopatra argued. “And if we can lure them into the palace for peace talks, we can kill Achillas ourselves. Make it out to be an accident.”

Crowley didn’t hear any more, sweeping out of the room instead. He headed down a corridor at random, peering closely at everyone he passed, looking for illusionary spells. The problem was, no illusion was needed if the demon was just possessing a body. Illusions were for altering other physical appearances…like turning serpentine eyes into human ones, or changing one’s body from a large man to a harmless serving girl drawing water for Caesar’s bath…

Crowley found himself back near the causeway, and peered out cautiously through a window. The fighting had fallen all the way back to the row of soldiers at the bottleneck of the isthmus, only a hundred yards away.

They’d be all over the palace soon.

Crowley pulled back and picked up his pace, trotting a perimeter around the palace. Before long he was back where he started, though this time the messenger from earlier was standing idle near the doors.

“Are you lost, sir?”

Crowley blinked and looked over at the soldier, who had spoken.

“No,” Crowley stated bluntly.

“Ah. Sorry, sir. You just look a little out of sorts, is all.”

Crowley shrugged.

The messenger sidled closer.

“Are you from around here, then? Alexandria, I mean?”

Crowley gave a short laugh. “No, not really. Nowhere close.”

The messenger was closer now, a hand casually in his pocket. “Rome, maybe?”

Crowley opened his mouth, perplexed at the messenger’s insistence, when the man suddenly screamed.

Crowley jumped back reflexively as a shower of water cascaded around the messenger. His face contorted, and suddenly Crowley realized what was going on.

The demon shrieked and collapsed to the floor. After a brief blaze of fire, he was gone. Crowley looked up at his savior, and saw Cleopatra holding an ornate pitcher. She gave him a curt nod.

Crowley looked down at the destroyed demon and back up at the pharaoh. “How did you know?”

“A second messenger just came in. Said he was straight from the front, and the Roman fleet is right on time. This one had credentials.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, looking down at the demon again. He was picturing what would have happened if Cleopatra had had a little worse aim. 

He forced that thought down and focused his attention on the situation at hand.

Three demons were done for, permanently. That just left the one he’d knocked around this morning and Jamur himself. Though the Duke of Hell ran with sometimes dozens of followers, word had been that he only had four with him on this little jaunt. Crowley had given the one this morning enough of a scare that he’d probably leave him and Aziraphale alone in the future and, besides, you always needed one alive to tell the story.

That just left Jamur, wherever he was.

At that moment there was a sudden outcry from nearby, and both looked in the direction of the causeway. Their last defenses were crumbling.

“The Roman fleet will be here in minutes, if it’s not already,” Cleopatra told him. “Once it arrives, we’re going down the cliffs to meet it. Once we’ve cleared the harbor we should be safe from Achilles’ army. You can accompany us if you like. Caesar sees enemies everywhere, but I do not think you are one of them.”

Crowley grimaced. All he needed was word of further good deeds to get back to Below. “I think I’ll pass,” he said. “I have unfinished business here.”

She nodded briskly and was half turned away when yet another Roman soldier dashed up to them. 

“My Lady Cleopatra!” he said breathlessly, executing a quick bow. “The Roman fleet has been spotted to the northeast, trying to enter the harbor. The Egyptians and Alexandrians are holding the northern islands. They’re arming all their seaworthy craft as we speak. They intend to prevent the Roman ships from reaching the palace.”

“Send as many men as we can spare there right away. Take some of the small craft tied up beneath the cliffs behind the palace. We need those Roman ships. Once they’ve gained the harbor, they’ll make quick work of Achilles’ men.”

The soldier bowed hastily and ran back in the direction he’d come from.

Crowley quickly surveyed his options and turned to Cleopatra. “Which direction are these boats tied up? I think I’ll tag along.”

She motioned to the left, and Crowley quickly started in that direction.

“May Amun watch over you!” she called after him, and Crowley mentally flinched. Below was going to be very displeased with him.


	5. The Great Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Great Harbor of Alexandria was one of the oldest harbors in the entire world, spanning a mile and a half across. A ring of islands bordered the great expanse of water on the northeast, and the palace sat on the western edge. 

Located strategically between the two, guiding the way between the scatters of islands, sat the Pharos Lighthouse.

Over three hundred feet of imposing limestone, it stretched impossibly high into the sky. Crowley found himself craning his head back to see the statue of Poseidon perched atop the rectangular structure. Baring the pyramids of Giza, Crowley didn’t think he’d ever seen anything taller in his entire immortal life. The Tower of Babel didn’t even come close. Also, this lighthouse had the advantage of smelling of nothing more foul than sea salt and lichen, which was a vast advantage. 

The small boat Crowley was standing in rocked unexpectedly, and he quickly tightened his grip on the center mast and willed the boat to remain upright. He was standing as near to the center as possible, surrounded by two dozen Roman soldiers, few of which seemed to be acquainted with the actual art of sailing. The demon kept his eyes off the choppy waves and focused instead on the approaching lighthouse. 

Several small ships had already docked near the base of the island, and the sounds of fighting drifted to them as they neared. 

The bow of the small boat collided with the rocky beach and the soldiers in the front jumped out, splashing through the shallow water to pull the boat higher. 

The Romans spilled out onto the sand, drawing their swords. Crowley carefully climbed out after them, relieved to be on dry land again. 

A red-cloaked figure on the beach jogged over to them. “Orders are to hold the lighthouse at all costs,” he told them. “The Egyptians are coming from the east. Septimus and Carro are holding the front right now. You’re their reinforcements.”

One of the soldiers from the boat, apparently the leader of their group, stepped forward and turned to address his men, pointing his sword in the direction of the fighting. “For Caesar!”

The Romans yelled their agreement and ran in the direction of their leader’s pointed sword. Once they were gone, the Roman turned back to the man on the beach. “Where’s Maximus’ position?” he asked.

The man blinked. “Maximus was killed two days ago, sir. Accident by the city gate, is what I heard.”

The Roman looked taken aback. “Well then, who’s Captain of the Guard? Publius? Titus?”

“No.” The man looked rather bewildered about the whole thing himself. “Someone new. He was appointed by Caesar personally. Had great experience, apparently.”

Crowley’s attention was immediately arrested, and he stepped forward quickly. “Two days ago, you said?”

The man gave him a strange look. “Yes.” He turned his attention back to the Roman. “His name was Belus Mars.”

Crowley couldn’t help a bark of laughter, and both humans turned to look at him sharply. “Sorry,” he managed. He’d never thought of Jamur as being particularly bright for a demon, but naming himself after two gods of war was just plain uninspired. Then Crowley’s mind shifted back to the matter at hand, and he felt his flash of humor drain away. He remembered Aziraphale’s devastated wings, burned and broken.

“Tell me,” Crowley said darkly. “Where is this _Belus Mars_?”

“Holding the lighthouse proper,” the man said, confused. “Making sure no Egyptians slip in and start sending signals to the Roman fleet.”

Crowley had already turned around before the man could finish, making a beeline for the tower of limestone in the center of the island. 

The lighthouse was boxy and broad, windows and stone adorned with little metal flares. The broad sandy stones were outlined in a dull gray, where mortar had been replaced with molten lead. 

Several Roman soldiers guarded the gate, but Crowley turned their eyes away with a wave of his hand and walked straight in.

He headed straight for the broad steps, the sounds of fighting diminishing as he walked higher.

The staircase wound around itself tighter and tighter, and soon the demon’s legs began to burn. He miracled away the fatigue and kept walking.

The steps went higher and higher and higher, and Crowley climbed closer and closer to the object of his mission.

Finally the stairs terminated, and Crowley climbed up onto the top floor of the lighthouse. A great silvered mirror sat mounted in the center of the room, beside a large furnace. The wind whistled between the slender railing and ring of narrow pillars supporting the roof, ruffling Crowley’s hair with a surprisingly cold touch. A narrow walkway arched in both directions around the furnace and mirror contraption in the center of the room. 

Crowley reached into his robes and pulled out the slender dagger. It had been blessed by the rabbi shortly after he’d convinced him to bless all the water going into the palace. 

He looked both ways and started off along the right side of the furnace, keeping his eyes trained on the edge of the contraption. He glanced over his shoulder every few yards, and placed his feet as soundlessly as possible. 

He thought he heard a scrap of human speech, but then the wind whipped it away, whistling in his ears.

He paused, tilting his head. He glanced behind him. No sign of Jamur.

Crowley swallowed and adjusted his grip on the dagger. He took another soundless step.

Up ahead, the demon saw the shadow of something sitting on the ground. He crept closer, and the shadow resolved itself into the figure of a person lying prone on the ground.

Crowley frowned. He crept closer, dagger in hand. He stared hard at the figure, but nothing demonic jumped out at him. It was human, or at least human-shaped, and appeared to be a middle-aged man, complete with short salt and pepper beard. Crowley prodded him gently with the tip of the blessed dagger. He looked to be out cold; there was a sharp red welt along his temple that suggested he’d been struck. 

Crowley left him on the ground, continuing his journey around the perimeter of the lighthouse.

To his right, Alexandria vanished from the horizon, replaced only by the broad blue of the sea. To his left, the broad mirror reflected the sky, blurring the line between the edge of the mirror and the path about to be revealed.

There was a faint scuffing sound, like a footstep, from up ahead. Crowley took another step, keeping his breathing carefully shallow. He adjusted his grip nervously on the dagger.

He kept his eyes trained on the path before him as he took another step.

There was a sudden loud _tsk_ ing noise from directly behind Crowley.

The demon spun, dagger flashing out. Before he could complete his rotation, his hand jerked and the blade sprang from his fingers, flying out the window of its own accord.

“Hello, Crowley.”

Crowley took a hasty step backwards. Jamur stood in front of him, tall and impassive in Roman armor. He had lost the red cloak and helmet, though his hand was resting casually on the hilt of his sword.

Crowley quickly composed himself, glancing belatedly out the window where his dagger had flown.

“You were going to try to kill me…with _that_ toothpick?” Jamur asked, condescension dripping off his words.

Crowley didn’t answer, preferring to take another step backwards as Jamur took one forward. Where his boot hit the ground, sparks snapped across the stone.

“I hear you’ve been messing around with my demons,” Jamur continued, tilting his head. His hair was long and dark, and hung sharply off his forehead like the ends were weighted down.

“More like just giving them baths,” Crowley suggested, keeping his tone light while his eyes never left the more powerful demon. “They looked a little dirty to me.”

Jamur hissed, a shadow of wings momentarily manifesting over his shoulders. “They’re _supposed_ to be unclean,” he thundered. “They’re _demons_.” Suddenly he had crossed the three feet between them and had Crowley by the front of his toga.

Crowley immediately tried to twist away, but Jamur’s grip was tight. Before he could so much as blink, the Duke of Hell had pushed the lesser demon backwards and slammed him into the huge circular mirror, hard.

Crowley gasped as his head struck the unyielding surface, and saw stars. 

“I thought you were a demon too, but it seems I was mistaken,” Jamur growled, face mere inches from Crowley’s. “You’re not a demon at all.” Jamur’s eyes narrowed, and his head tilted again, unnervingly.

Crowley wheezed for air and focused on forcing the bile in his throat down. He tried to resolve the double images of Jamur spinning in his vision into a single one, but there was a strong ringing in his ears distracting him.

Jamur dragged him forward a few inches and slammed him back into the mirror again. Crowley heard a sharp crack as the mirror splintered.“You think you’re an angel, is that it?”

Jamur’s hand shifted from Crowley’s toga front to his throat, closing around the lesser demon’s neck mercilessly. “Well, you’re not either,” he hissed, breath stinking on Crowley’s face. “You’re an _abomination_.”

The stars were multiplying now in Crowley’s vision, and though the demon didn’t need to breathe, he did if he wanted to remain Earthbound. 

“This is all about that angel we roasted today, isn’t it?” Jamur spat scathingly. He tilted his head up, flexing his fingers as he crushed Crowley’s windpipe. “I’m sure when he was dying, when his very essence was being ripped to shreds by the holy fire, his screams were something to behold.”

Crowley’s hands scrabbled uselessly at Jamur’s arm, scratching so deep with his fingernails that he drew blood, but the demon didn’t so much as flinch.

“So how about we head Downstairs, and have a nice chat before I end you?” Jamur’s grip suddenly tightened, and waves of black and red rolled alarmingly over Crowley’s vision. His head was pounding, and no matter how hard he pushed back with what remained of his demonic strength, Jamur swamped it with his superior will. 

Crowley tried to twist his mouth to form a spell, or kick out at Jamur’s legs, but his strength was quickly sapping and nothing he did had the slightest effect.

Crowley’s vision veered towards black and he was about to go under when there was a sudden loud snap and Jamur’s hand released.

Crowley dropped immediately to the ground, collapsing onto his hands and knees. He tried to take a breath but only wheezed brokenly. A few drops of red appeared on the ground beneath him. He dragged some demonic magic together and miracled his throat back to its original shape. He took a gasping breath and fell over onto his side, just sucking in oxygen. His throat still burned, and every other gasp was a hitching one, but he could do a better job later.

Five feet away, Jamur waved his hand and a figure flew across the room and slammed into a wall.

Crowley pushed himself to his feet, recognizing his rescuer as the middle-aged man he’d seen knocked out on the floor earlier. An iron rod—presumably what had given Jamur the fresh dark streak across the demon’s jaw and caused him to release Crowley—rattled as it hit the floor and rolled underneath the mirror. 

Jamur wiped his jaw with the back of his hand, healing the wound with a thought. He started to turn back to Crowley.

In his singular moment of distraction, Crowley lunged for Jamur. He barreled into the more powerful demon at full speed, knocking him back towards the edge of the lighthouse. 

They collided with the railing, and Crowley directed all of his will into breaking the stone supports. 

Jamur’s hands closed around Crowley’s arms, fury building in his eyes.

The railing cracked, and Crowley pushed the two of them off the edge.

 

 

//~~~***—***~~~\\\

 

 

The wind flashed by as the two demons plunged toward the harbor below, interlocked. 

Jamur still had a death grip on Crowley, and where his palms were vice-like around Crowley’s arms, he felt them begin to burn with more than just the pressure.

The lighthouse flashed by on one side, the city and harbor spiraling beneath them as they fell. 

Jamur showed no signs of wanting to arrest their fall, and Crowley suddenly realized that he intended for the impact of them hitting the water to kill them both, so they’d go straight to Hell and Jamur could have his fun.

As soon as this realization hit him, Crowley took a deep breath and pulled his wings into this dimension, manifesting them with a burst of black feathers. 

In a manner of seconds Crowley had dragged them off course, further out over the water, spinning them around and dragging them up slightly. 

“What are you _doing?_ ” Jamur growled, hissing in anger as Crowley barrel-rolled clumsily to the side, jerking the Duke around in the air.

“What, _you_ want to die like a human?” Crowley hissed back, flapping mightily and taking care to smack Jamur full across the face with one of his wings, more powerful than a human punch could ever be.

Jamur hissed, eyes growing huge and dark, and a moment later a second set of wings was filling the air.

They were dark brown and streaked with red, easily ten feet longer than Crowley’s, and twice as powerful. 

Immediately Crowley tucked his own wings away and lunged his arm forward, hand closing around the hilt of Jamur’s sword.

Jamur, trying to compensate for the sudden change in weight and absence of Crowley’s wings, didn’t notice as the lesser demon pulled the Duke’s Roman sword from its sheath.

The harbor rushed closer; waves of salt air were rolling over them, and the sound of crashing waves were loud in Crowley’s ears. 

Jamur succeeded in pulling them out of the errant spiral Crowley had thrown them into, just in time for Crowley to throw his weight to the side and drive the sword deep into the leading edge of Jamur’s wing. 

The Duke of Hell screamed. His wing collapsed, sending them back into an erratic spin. Jamur's grip on Crowley loosened just an inch, but it was enough.

Crowley’s wings burst back into this dimension, perfectly balanced and whole. He curled his legs up and kicked Jamur solidly in the diaphragm, curving his wings and conjuring a quick breeze to hit them square on. 

The combination of the three yanked Crowley backwards so quickly he almost passed out. 

He desperately righted himself and flapped wildly; he was still falling, and the surface of the water was nerve-wrackingly close.

He finally succeeded in arresting his motion, and pulled up and away from the water just as Jamur, still spiraling out of control, hit the surface.

Jamur screamed, his wings beating the surface of the water as they burst into sludge, smoke and steam rising in a cloud. He tried to fly up, out of the water, but only made it a foot before falling back in and dissolving in a burst of flame.

Crowley, hovering safely out of range of Jamur’s splashes, shivered. That rabbi had done well. After blessing the water destined for the palace and Crowley’s dagger, he’d done as the demon had told him, and blessed the entire harbor.

Undoubtedly the effects would wear off in a couple of hours, days at the most, but Crowley would be steering well clear of any liquids for a couple weeks solid.

With Jamur only a wisp of smoke beneath him, Crowley felt suddenly very alone. 

He shivered again, despite the warm breeze, and directed his wings towards the base of the lighthouse. Most of the fighting on the island seemed to have ceased, and Crowley hoped no one was looking too closely as he flew a little further from the water’s edge and dropped down shakily by the foot of the lighthouse.

With the threat eliminated, Crowley finally began to feel his exhaustion, bone-deep, some still carrying over from the ordeal at the library. He was tired and hungry and his throat hurt and his wings still ached uncomfortably, and he thought he might have bruises or maybe burns on his arms. He’d miracle them better later, he decided; he was just about out of magic again, and just wanted to curl up somewhere safe and take a very long nap. 

He sighed, gingerly touched the side of his neck, folded his wings back away out of sight, and started off along the edge of the lighthouse.

He was almost to the gate when someone sprinted up to him. It was the middle-aged man from the top of the lighthouse, Crowley recognized, the one that had stopped Jamur from strangling him to death.

The thought of Jamur dragging him down Below made Crowley grimace, and he forced himself to slow to a stop as the man reached him, breathless.

“By Thoth himself, you’re alive!” The man stretched out a hand and touched his shoulder, gently, as though confirming his words.

“It would appear so,” Crowley said, though he was having trouble mustering his usual sarcasm.

“I—I ran down as soon as I saw you fall—that other man—did he—?” He looked over Crowley’s shoulder, as though expecting Jamur to materialize behind him.

“Didn’t make it,” Crowley grumbled. 

“Oh. Though—” here the man gave Crowley a significant glance, “he didn’t seem like the nice type to me.”

“And I don’t?” Crowley asked, mildly offended.

The man wrinkled his nose. “Not really. Besides, he was a Roman officer! He was misusing his authority. Terrible. Both a crime and a sin.”

Crowley had to give him that one, though for the most part he just wanted the man to leave before he started asking too many questions. But the man _had_ saved his life, so Crowley dragged out a “Hey, thanks for saving me back there, by the way,” before he could stop himself. Aziraphale was going to have a field day if he ever found out about any of this. Crowley resolved to make extra certain that the angel did not.

“No thanks are required! I was just passing it along, I suppose.”

“What, you were saved recently too?” Crowley asked, not really wondering.

“In fact, I was,” said the man, with the tone of a person about to launch into a long story. “You see, I work here at the lighthouse, but only on the side for a bit of spare money, you understand? Mostly I’m a scholar. Just earlier today I was at the library, when that dreadful Julius Caesar ordered his ships to be set on fire. And then, of course, it spread to the library, and, well, I didn’t realize what was happening at the time, but then it turned out we were trapped inside! Me and this young Greek boy and this other fellow, with a strange sort of Celtic accent and an unflappable manner and quite a strange sense of fashion, and these gentlemen helped me escape! Well, we all helped each other, you see, but we all saved one another! Though…” here the man trailed off. “I haven’t see the Celtic fellow since…he went ahead of us, I’m sure…” He frowned.

Crowley, meanwhile, was staring at him with something bordering disbelief. 

“I do hope he got out all right…” the man said, looking genuinely concerned.

Crowley found his voice. “I’m sure he’s doing just fine,” he said, and looked straight at the man as he said it, reaching into his mind to assure him of the words’ truth.

The man’s face relaxed, worry dropping away. “Ah, well, I’m sure he’s doing just fine,” he said brightly. He seemed to realize Crowley was still there. “Anyway, is there anything I can help you with? You’re not hurt at all?” He looked Crowley up and down, and the demon decided it was time to make his exit.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s somewhere I need to be.”

“Oh, of course, of course!” The man said, stepping to the side. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Crowley nodded, gave the man a genuine smile, and headed off in the direction of the nearest boat. He didn’t trust his wings to hold out over the entire expanse of harbor, so he’d just miracle the boat into steering itself and have a good lie-down.

By the time he reached the beach, turning away the eyes of any of the humans that would have stopped him, dozens of long, narrow, red-sailed galleys were streaming past the lighthouse. 

The Romans had taken the harbor.


	6. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Two thousand and fifty years later, on the sixteenth of October, Aziraphale flew to Alexandria.

Crowley tagged along because he liked the sound of spending some time on the hot Egyptian coast. This was not the only reason Crowley had tagged along, but it was the only one the demon admitted to himself.

During the entire ceremony, crowded in as they were next to the harbor, Crowley found himself looking out over the water. The island where Cleopatra’s palace had stood was a little smaller now, and the narrow causeway once guarded by a handful of determined Roman soldiers was now a broad isthmus of crisscrossing roads and skyscrapers. Pharos Island, where the tallest building in the world had once stood, was now the home of an aquarium, and Crowley had seen taller apartment buildings. Palm trees grew every hundred feet along the edge of the harbor, and the distant sound of honking cars on the four-lane highway ringing the waterfront was audible even from here. 

But the sky was just as blue as it had always been, and the water just as broad and flat, and the air just as stifling. 

In the end, the Romans had won. Ptolemy was killed crossing the Nile, and Cleopatra continued ruling Egypt unopposed. Caesar returned to Rome, where he declared himself dictator. Shortly after, he was assassinated by a group of senators, and succeeded by his grandnephew, Octavian, who declared himself emperor. Upon Cleopatra’s death, Egypt was annexed as a Roman province. 

And Rome had risen and Rome had fallen, and Egypt had been conquered by Persians, Muslims, Ottomans, and the British, and then made free; Christ had been born and died and come again, and the Catholic Church created, split, and split again; North and South America had finally been discovered by the West, and its native people conquered and subdued; the world had been ruled by a tiny island in the North Sea, and then the world had ruled itself; the atom bomb had been created, used once, used twice, and never used again; and then the world had ended, but not really.

Crowley glanced over his shoulder at Aziraphale, rapt as he watched the ceremony unfold.

His wings had healed, in the end. Above had taken pity on him and taken him Upstairs for some expert care. Aziraphale, not wanting to be laid up in Heaven while all the fun stuff happened on Earth, returned as soon as they would let him. He had to be flown down by some of the others, of course, and had waited around for quite awhile in some town called Londinium while he sent out messengers looking for Crowley. 

Said demon, meanwhile, had been quite enjoying some time in Rome, where the wine tasted great and every other emperor was clinically insane. Eventually Aziraphale’s message had reached him, and he’d flown to Britain straightaway. He hadn’t spent much time there in the past—it had always seemed a bit rainy and chilly to him—but as soon as he’d landed Aziraphale was dragging him around to look at the various (and not very impressive) features of the city and surrounding hills.

As soon as he could get the angel to calm down, Crowley, not putting much stock in Heaven’s healthcare, gave Aziraphale’s wings a meticulous examination. They’d done a good job Upstairs, though, and the angel had already molted once. Some of the damage was still visible—touches of red and black down near the bone, missing or twisted feathers that hadn’t grown back in properly—but he was in much better shape than he’d been the last time Crowley had seen him, some seventy years before.

He wasn’t sure if the angel had ever figured out the extent of what he’d done in Alexandria. Crowley had firmly denied everything, of course, and was able to write off most of the strange stories Aziraphale was hearing to the actions of the Romans or Egyptians. He had brushed off the angel’s concern about his bruised throat to being mugged, though he was fairly certain Aziraphale didn’t buy that an inch. Luckily, he was still mildly delirious at the time, and Crowley had made sure to properly heal it before the angel came around again, at which point Crowley denied all knowledge of such an exchange. 

The rumors of angel-killing demons stopped, though, and instead a new one started circulating: demon-killing angels. Crowley found this a tad annoying: he was _not_ , as Jamur had so politely pointed out, an angel, but apparently the distinction had been lost on the rumor mill as well.* In fact, for a while the rumor circulating had referred to the demons’ slayer as the Angel of Alexandria; not, Crowley thought, a bad title, if an inaccurate one. If he had bothered to really think about it, some part of Crowley would have realized that he actually quite liked the title. Incidentally, the demon took great pains to never think about such things, for precisely this reason.

 

* This was particularly irritating because Crowley knew full well that the rumor must have been started by the demon he’d met in the alley by the city wall. That demon had recognized him—had known his name—so to deliberately misalign him must have been a willful act. Either that, or no one believed that a demon would kill other demons. Or possibly he had simply assumed that Aziraphale had escaped and taken his own revenge.** He’d probably done Crowley a favor, though, the demon had decided upon reflection; Hell wouldn’t have responded kindly if they’d realized he’d gone rogue.

 

** None of these options were, in fact, the correct one; the demon, a slimy young new recruit named Mithocaules, had actually assumed that Crowley, upon finding his friend killed, had somehow un-Fallen into Heaven and then smote the demons. Mithocaules was not, as one may have guessed, the brightest bulb on the demonic Christmas tree; he was just completely incapable of understanding how a creature that would befriend the Adversary could be a demon. Mithocaules had, in his opinion, seen far stranger things happen: a rat crawling out of a dead man’s eye socket, for example, or a woman who, underneath the clothes, turned out to be a man, or a small coin disappearing under one of three cups. Un-Falling did not seem like such a hardship to a demon so incompetent he could neither pronounce nor spell his own name. He might have pieced things together eventually, though; luckily for Crowley, only two days after Mithocaules had spread the initial rumors and set the whole thing in motion, he’d gone down to the Alexandrian harbor for a nice bit of swimming. He did not return.

 

At any rate, after a few hundred years Aziraphale’s wings had healed completely, and the subject of Alexandria had ceased to come to either of their minds. 

But now they had returned, and for the same reason they had come in the first place.

There was a burst of clapping, and Crowley looked up to see that the man on the podium ahead of them had finally finished his speech. The crowd began to move forward, trickling towards the curved, gray stone and glass building in front of them.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, shaped like a short cylinder half tilted out of the ground, stood very close to the location of the original library. It had enough shelf space for eight million books, and the main reading room consisted of eleven cascading levels. Crowley’s favorite part was the shallow reflecting pond ringing the front. It was always a good idea to have water near libraries, in Crowley’s opinion. 

Aziraphale saw Crowley eyeing the building suspiciously (he was counting the exits), and walked over to him. Most of the crowd had trickled towards the library, eager to see the inside.

“Something the matter, dear?” the angel asked kindly.

Crowley dragged his gaze away from the library and shrugged. “Not really,” he lied.

Aziraphale gave him a stern look. Then he glanced out over the harbor, and back at the library, and then back at the harbor again. He looked at Crowley and raised an eyebrow. “Anything at all you’d like to tell me?”

Crowley, abruptly realizing what he was getting at, smirked. The bugger didn’t give up, did he? “Nothing at all, angel,” he replied smoothly. “Nothing at all.”

Aziraphale gave a huff of disbelief, but didn’t press the issue.

“After you,” Crowley said, indicating the library. He wasn’t planning on letting the angel out of his sight until they were safely outside of the city. 

Aziraphale gave him a polite nod and started towards the building.

Once they were at the modern glass doors, the angel paused and turned back to Crowley, one hand on the smooth silver push bar. “Thank you, by the way.”

Crowley gave the angel an innocent look. “Whatever for?”

Aziraphale shrugged, though his eyes were sparkling. “Nothing at all, dear.”

Crowley smirked, and he saw the angel smile before he turned away, pushing open the glass door to the library. “Nothing at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it! Comments and kudos are, as ever, appreciated.


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